Highrider – Roll for Initiative

[schema type=”review” name=”Highrider – Roll for Initiative” description=”Label: The Sign Records” author=”Juho Karila” pubdate=”2017-09-15″ ]

Highrider is a very odd Heavy Metal band from Gothenburg, Sweden. They’ve been together since 2013 and their debut album was released almost 2 months ago, but their style goes far beyond what is generally considered as Heavy Metal.

The first impression Nihilist Lament gave to me was that this is the most chaotic album I’ve heard in a while. The soundscape is very high-gain and distorted, from guitars to vocals and void of traditional guitar leads and high-pitch singing that usually gives the characteristics to this genre; at first I thought this is some kind of Hardcore Punk.

The second track doesn’t make an exception but it begins with a long intro of heavy chords, which resembles old-fashioned Doom Metal. The rest of the sound is very fast-paced and aggressive like the previous one and that’s the easiest way to sum up the album.

Every now and then, we get some quite traditional and generic guitar lead sections but those are drowned to the heavy gravity of the songs overall and it isn’t quite enough to make the tracks catchy and memorable.

Clearly some of the songs are made tongue-in-the-cheek and offers some nerd humor, judging by the album name and the song Roll Dee Twenty but there is one track that raises above the others: The Rope and the Blade. The final track is the most thought and unique of the 8, utilizing guitars as a dominant melodic instrument instead of an Opeth -like organs.

Sadly, the overall album feels and sounds like an inside joke of a Dungeons & Dragons group rather than a musically serious warband on the metal field. They do show some prowess and has their concept thought but it seems so effortless, it fails to convince me; or I just don’t understand their point. For the future, maybe they should refine and spend a little more time in songwriting by adding some hooks, instead of creating noise.

Tracklist:1. Nihilist Lament 2. A Burial Scene 3. Batteries 4. The Greater Monkey 5. Vagina Al Dente 6. Emotional Werewolf 7. Roll Dee Twenty 8. The Rope and the Blade

Line-up:
Andreas Fagerberg – Bass, Vocals
Carl-Axel Wittbeck – Drums
Peter Jacobsson – Guitars
Christopher Ekendahl – Keyboards

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